"The display was just breathtaking."
Anyone with any interest in investing in the Philippines would take one look at what is happening to ABS-CBN and head for the hills.
Here we see a prime example of political bigwigs trying to use their power to run what was once a thriving business into the ground. Although they used legalistic arguments to justify their actions, their behavior during the recently concluded congressional hearings about the broadcast network’s legislative franchise left no doubt that they had an axe to grind.
Often, it was a crude axe they wielded, pressuring the owner of the network to prove his citizenship by reciting a patriotic oath that, for most people, has been locked away with other childhood memories. Or, ignoring the testimony of government agencies that had told them that the network had no outstanding tax liabilities, and that there was nothing irregular in the way it conducted its business affairs.
So it was that the lawmakers from the House of Representatives killed ABS-CBN’s bid to renew its legislative franchise, throwing some 11,000 of its workers into unemployment.
Clearly, these politicians had made their point. Or had they?
In an online discussion last week, the lawmakers who had led the charge against ABS-CBN’s franchise renewal made it clear they were not done yet.
As public criticism of their behavior mounted, they went on the attack, with one lawmaker suggesting that they slap a P2 trillion fine and seize the network’s headquarters in Quezon City.
In the discussion, they regurgitated many of the accusations they had used to deny ABS-CBN’s franchise renewal.
Other lawmakers “suggested” that ABS-CBN sell its assets to other parties that could make use of the facilities to save its employees—a move reminiscent of gangster movies in which storeowners being sold protection were made an offer they could not refuse. Or the seizure of ABS-CBN properties during martial law. Or of Nazis who seized properties that Jews were forced to “sell.”
After the informal online discussion, one lawmaker proposed a follow-up meeting with the chairmen of relevant House committees to decide on how to take further action against the company.
It was a show of vindictiveness the likes of which we have not seen since then President Benigno Aquino III used the entire machinery of government to vilify and oust Chief Justice Renato Corona in 2012, then hounded him with tax cases until his death in 2016.
And we thought we would be better than that.
If the lawmakers’ motives in holding their online discussion was to defend themselves and to sway public opinion in their favor, we suggest they are going about it the wrong way. The arrogance of power on display was breathtaking—and completely off-putting.
